I would be a hypocrite if I didn't participate in the stated goals of bringing the forum back around, and one of those ways is more projects. I normally post everything to my site and my social accounts, but I'll post this one here as well. This one is about 90% done, the remainder I'll mention down at the bottom. Lots of pics for you, hopefully to help influence some voting for a CXS. I don't own any Festool drills.
A short background, this is I believe my seventh interpretation of the self-built router table. I learned a lot of things in the previous six, but I decided I go for lucky number seven. The last router table I planned to build, and I'd take my time and make sure I designed it to my specific needs, my specific space, for now and for the next decade or more. I am a very amateur woodworker, one who still can easily make the real dumb mistake. My efforts thus far have been slowly improving, but I wanted to use this project to both expand and refine my skills.
The design
Because I have such a small shop (less than 12' square), my router table has to serve multiple masters. I would say this is partially the reason why I've had so many, and at times had to combine it with my table saw. This one had to be an outfeed table, assembly table, systainer storage and miscellaneous storage. It also had to be mobile, ridgid, and flow with the other floor tools. Thus, I ultimately came up with this design:
It's a little bit different than most designs, which focus on the user being to the infeed portion of the table. Because it had to back up to the table saw very tightly, drawers and power just wasn't going to work over there. So, the drawers and power switch are on the outfeed side, the dust collection would go out the infeed side, and I'd have access to the router directly to the front. I was committed to an offset base, because I had always wanted an Incra fence. Under the router cabinet I incorporated room to store at least two systainers.
The design was settled on in November after about six months of thinking about it. Like I said, I was slow playing it. Being in school slowed things down as well. I wrestled over very minor things, like if the middle divider would be hidden by a panel, etc.
Construction
Main construction of the base took about ten days in February. The top that I had on the old router table would be carried over to this one, so it isn't included. I'll eventually upgrade to an Incra table and Cleansweep insert plate, but that is down the road. The design and construction allow for this.
I don't have a good way to get sheet goods home, so I rented a truck from Lowe's and purchased the plywood there. It's a decent blondewood that isn't that much more expensive than the decent stuff from the lumber yard. I decided that I would use ARS for the finish, so I didn't go for the cheapest thing. Once home, I used my Centipede XL and the TS55 to make the crosscuts. I don't have a longer rail than the 1900, so crosscuts have to come first for me. I badly need the 3000 rail, but it is still out of reach.
With the biggest pieces cut, I could then move to the MFT/3, where the shorter cuts could be done. Unfortunately, one of those cuts still exceeded the capacity of the table. So, that one was made without registering the front rail. At some point I'll get some Parf dogs.
One of my design decisions was to use iron-on edging versus the hardwood banding bit setup. I didn't have enough practice with it, and trying to navigate all the different edges I thought would be too much. I have a little travel size iron that works well, and using the MFT to hold the pieces at a proper height is ideal. Once all of the edging was on, I gave one of my newest tools a good run through.
I bought the OF1010 and the edge set specifically for use cases like this. It does take some fiddling to get it set up right, and using a bearing on the router bit helps tremendously. I messed up a bit without the bearing, but I got it dialed in better until I realized the bearing bit trick. It wouldn't be the last mistake, but because of where it was it would be the most visible. An effortless pass with a block sander (the hard one from the Festool set) made most of the edges spot on.
The Domino 500 was used to assemble the entire case, and those cuts came next. I still don't trust the extension pieces to line things up accurately, so I manually marked all my holes. This works for me. The alignment was pretty much perfect, and anything otherwise was user error. Even though I made a concerted effort to slow down, sometimes my impatience got the better of me. This was also the first time I attempted joining panels in a field (not against an edge). That was exciting.
The mistakes arrive
One of my mortises blew out, but thankfully it was a simple fix with a spring clamp and glue. Can't tell it ever happened. The bigger mistake was that I had made my baseplate a different size as compared to the rest of the base. I didn't discover this until I had cut all the mortises and was doing the dry fit. Late in the process I had increased the size of the base about an inch, and forgot to translate that to the rest of the horizontal pieces. I took a break and went with the solution that made the most sense: fill the mortises, cut them flush, cut the base down to fit the other panels, and go from there. That approach worked well. This delayed the project by a couple of days, but the end result is one I can live with.
Once my new dry fit was accomplished, it was time to add 5mm holes. All the drawers on the outfeed side would be attached this way, and I also added them to the systainer compartment in case I wanted to add drawers there later. Now, normally I have really great results with the LR32. This time, though, I don't know if something shifted or what. You'll be able to tell from the pictures that they aren't all lined up. Also, since I didn't have the drawer slides when I did it, I couldn't add a definitive rear hole. I just did it on a multiple of 32mm and hoped for the best. I also didn't account for the false drawer front when I was calculating my first hole location. It would mean overlays later. With the drawers in place, though, it's all good.
Assembly
I used 5x30mm Dominos all over the joint, and this tool makes doing this part special. It came together just like I knew it would. Once most of it was done and dried, a couple coats of ARS was applied. I put the casters on (too short as it turned out, replaced later with bigger ones), and it was time to put in my top attachment points. On my last table these were a true afterthought, this time I used pocket holes and spanned the front and rear of the drawer bank, plus the front of the router cabinet. The top is attached with screws from the bottom of these attachment points for a solid unit. I ran power to a new switch, embedded in the outfeed side, and the cord goes through the rear of the table to my best available power strip.
At this point I put in at the rear of my table saw and discovered it was too high for anything on the saw to clear. Whoops. As it turned out, a few weeks after I got to this point I upgraded my table saw and the table was then way too short. So higher casters went on so that the saw would clear the router table, but any stock on the router table would clear the rails on the table saw.
Drawers
The project sat while I finished up school, with the old drawers just sitting in the drawer bank cavity. New drawers were constructed out of similar 1/2" blondewood ply, again put together with 5x30mm Dominos. I used the new table to cut the drawer bottom groove. The dust created there convinced me my future plans to upgrade to a Cleansweep insert is appropriate. I temporarily used 3/4 Euro slides I had around until I got full extension ones. The drawer fronts were completed this last weekend. I used a single piece of ply to keep continuity, and I experimented with the edge banding bit set. I offset the cut so that I would have a bit of overhang to the front, creating a bit of a shadow line as well. Mistakes were made here, most notably me not being able to figure out how long to cut the edge banding at 45° angles. I'm horrible at that. Some sandable putty helped fill the gaps. The drawer pulls are some of my immense stash of grey Ikea units (one drawer of the router table holds them).
Now, I said 90% done. I need to make a door for the router cabinet, a bottom-mount drawer for the systainer cabinet, and apply finish to the new drawer fronts. Adding dust extraction for the router cabinet would also be a good idea.
The pictures and details here aren't everything. There's a bit more detail at my site, under the Router table v7 tag. Thanks for looking.
A short background, this is I believe my seventh interpretation of the self-built router table. I learned a lot of things in the previous six, but I decided I go for lucky number seven. The last router table I planned to build, and I'd take my time and make sure I designed it to my specific needs, my specific space, for now and for the next decade or more. I am a very amateur woodworker, one who still can easily make the real dumb mistake. My efforts thus far have been slowly improving, but I wanted to use this project to both expand and refine my skills.
The design
Because I have such a small shop (less than 12' square), my router table has to serve multiple masters. I would say this is partially the reason why I've had so many, and at times had to combine it with my table saw. This one had to be an outfeed table, assembly table, systainer storage and miscellaneous storage. It also had to be mobile, ridgid, and flow with the other floor tools. Thus, I ultimately came up with this design:
It's a little bit different than most designs, which focus on the user being to the infeed portion of the table. Because it had to back up to the table saw very tightly, drawers and power just wasn't going to work over there. So, the drawers and power switch are on the outfeed side, the dust collection would go out the infeed side, and I'd have access to the router directly to the front. I was committed to an offset base, because I had always wanted an Incra fence. Under the router cabinet I incorporated room to store at least two systainers.
The design was settled on in November after about six months of thinking about it. Like I said, I was slow playing it. Being in school slowed things down as well. I wrestled over very minor things, like if the middle divider would be hidden by a panel, etc.
Construction
Main construction of the base took about ten days in February. The top that I had on the old router table would be carried over to this one, so it isn't included. I'll eventually upgrade to an Incra table and Cleansweep insert plate, but that is down the road. The design and construction allow for this.
I don't have a good way to get sheet goods home, so I rented a truck from Lowe's and purchased the plywood there. It's a decent blondewood that isn't that much more expensive than the decent stuff from the lumber yard. I decided that I would use ARS for the finish, so I didn't go for the cheapest thing. Once home, I used my Centipede XL and the TS55 to make the crosscuts. I don't have a longer rail than the 1900, so crosscuts have to come first for me. I badly need the 3000 rail, but it is still out of reach.
With the biggest pieces cut, I could then move to the MFT/3, where the shorter cuts could be done. Unfortunately, one of those cuts still exceeded the capacity of the table. So, that one was made without registering the front rail. At some point I'll get some Parf dogs.
One of my design decisions was to use iron-on edging versus the hardwood banding bit setup. I didn't have enough practice with it, and trying to navigate all the different edges I thought would be too much. I have a little travel size iron that works well, and using the MFT to hold the pieces at a proper height is ideal. Once all of the edging was on, I gave one of my newest tools a good run through.
I bought the OF1010 and the edge set specifically for use cases like this. It does take some fiddling to get it set up right, and using a bearing on the router bit helps tremendously. I messed up a bit without the bearing, but I got it dialed in better until I realized the bearing bit trick. It wouldn't be the last mistake, but because of where it was it would be the most visible. An effortless pass with a block sander (the hard one from the Festool set) made most of the edges spot on.
The Domino 500 was used to assemble the entire case, and those cuts came next. I still don't trust the extension pieces to line things up accurately, so I manually marked all my holes. This works for me. The alignment was pretty much perfect, and anything otherwise was user error. Even though I made a concerted effort to slow down, sometimes my impatience got the better of me. This was also the first time I attempted joining panels in a field (not against an edge). That was exciting.
The mistakes arrive
One of my mortises blew out, but thankfully it was a simple fix with a spring clamp and glue. Can't tell it ever happened. The bigger mistake was that I had made my baseplate a different size as compared to the rest of the base. I didn't discover this until I had cut all the mortises and was doing the dry fit. Late in the process I had increased the size of the base about an inch, and forgot to translate that to the rest of the horizontal pieces. I took a break and went with the solution that made the most sense: fill the mortises, cut them flush, cut the base down to fit the other panels, and go from there. That approach worked well. This delayed the project by a couple of days, but the end result is one I can live with.
Once my new dry fit was accomplished, it was time to add 5mm holes. All the drawers on the outfeed side would be attached this way, and I also added them to the systainer compartment in case I wanted to add drawers there later. Now, normally I have really great results with the LR32. This time, though, I don't know if something shifted or what. You'll be able to tell from the pictures that they aren't all lined up. Also, since I didn't have the drawer slides when I did it, I couldn't add a definitive rear hole. I just did it on a multiple of 32mm and hoped for the best. I also didn't account for the false drawer front when I was calculating my first hole location. It would mean overlays later. With the drawers in place, though, it's all good.
Assembly
I used 5x30mm Dominos all over the joint, and this tool makes doing this part special. It came together just like I knew it would. Once most of it was done and dried, a couple coats of ARS was applied. I put the casters on (too short as it turned out, replaced later with bigger ones), and it was time to put in my top attachment points. On my last table these were a true afterthought, this time I used pocket holes and spanned the front and rear of the drawer bank, plus the front of the router cabinet. The top is attached with screws from the bottom of these attachment points for a solid unit. I ran power to a new switch, embedded in the outfeed side, and the cord goes through the rear of the table to my best available power strip.
At this point I put in at the rear of my table saw and discovered it was too high for anything on the saw to clear. Whoops. As it turned out, a few weeks after I got to this point I upgraded my table saw and the table was then way too short. So higher casters went on so that the saw would clear the router table, but any stock on the router table would clear the rails on the table saw.
Drawers
The project sat while I finished up school, with the old drawers just sitting in the drawer bank cavity. New drawers were constructed out of similar 1/2" blondewood ply, again put together with 5x30mm Dominos. I used the new table to cut the drawer bottom groove. The dust created there convinced me my future plans to upgrade to a Cleansweep insert is appropriate. I temporarily used 3/4 Euro slides I had around until I got full extension ones. The drawer fronts were completed this last weekend. I used a single piece of ply to keep continuity, and I experimented with the edge banding bit set. I offset the cut so that I would have a bit of overhang to the front, creating a bit of a shadow line as well. Mistakes were made here, most notably me not being able to figure out how long to cut the edge banding at 45° angles. I'm horrible at that. Some sandable putty helped fill the gaps. The drawer pulls are some of my immense stash of grey Ikea units (one drawer of the router table holds them).
Now, I said 90% done. I need to make a door for the router cabinet, a bottom-mount drawer for the systainer cabinet, and apply finish to the new drawer fronts. Adding dust extraction for the router cabinet would also be a good idea.
The pictures and details here aren't everything. There's a bit more detail at my site, under the Router table v7 tag. Thanks for looking.
